


You Are Not Your Own

by thatdamneddame



Series: They've Given You A Number And Taken Away Your Name [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Life Model Decoys, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1288246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamneddame/pseuds/thatdamneddame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson knows as soon as he wakes up that his life has been divided into Before and After. This, he thinks, is not his body.</p><p>Phil POV to "They've Given You A Number And Taken Away Your Name," but can be read as stand alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Not Your Own

**Author's Note:**

> Found this mostly completed in my WIPs file, and figured I might as well finish it. This diverges from canon starting ep 1 Agents of SHIELD.
> 
> Title from 1 Corinthians 6:19.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to prettyasadiagram for the beta.

Coulson knows as soon as he wakes up that his life has been divided into _Before_ and _After_ , one of those neat divisions that only seem to happen in every Lifetime movie he’d deny ever watching.

He keeps his eyes closed and catalogs his body, works from the feet up. He does not think _I shouldn’t be alive_. Coulson’s has seen enough good people to die that he knows _should_ and _shouldn’t_ have little to do with it.

Everything hurts, the indistinct hum of pain that comes from lying in a hospital bed for too long. But he’s all there: fingers and legs and toes and arms. His chest doesn’t hurt. Coulson has woken up in enough hospital beds after enough field wounds to know that this is strange.

The ceiling of the room is plain and white. It’s not a drop ceiling and Coulson thinks that’s probably significant. He wonders if that is a water stain, in the corner, or just a strange shadow as he trails the fingers of his right hand across his chest. He can feel bandages, rough against his fingers, with a drainage tube, thick as his finger, sticking out. Gently, he picks up his left hand, slowly raises it to see how high it can go. He ends up raising his hand all the way above his head and there still is no pain.

 _Strange_ , Coulson thinks, realizing he is tired again. He takes comfort, at least, that exhaustion is normal.

 

***

 

There is pain, this time, when Coulson wakes. There are doctors and nurses trailing in and out, asking him questions and telling him offhand, like it isn’t his concern, that he’s in Tahiti. That he’s lucky to be alive.

Coulson is not familiar with SHIELD’s base in Tahiti, although he has heard of it. It’s hard to remember with everyone bustling around him what the debriefing on Tahiti had said. _Cybernetics_ , he thinks he remembers reading, but his chest hurts now and he can’t be sure.

 

***

 

It takes a few days for Nick to come.

“How you holding up, Cheese?” he asks, like this hospital visit is no different from when Coulson broke his arm climbing down a mountain in a training exercise.

“It would be better,” Coulson tells him, “if I knew what was happening.” He does not say _I don’t hurt when I should_. He does not say, _I know my neurologist used to work for SHIELD Robotics_. Coulson does not know what happened after he was stabbed, after he died for eight seconds. He does not know how the world has rearranged itself in his absence.

“Well, we won,” Nick says, but he doesn’t look pleased.

Coulson asks for more. Nick tells him.

 

***

 

Nick Fury has been Coulson’s boss longer than he’s been his friend. Coulson has never forgotten this. He is well versed in how Nick lies.

 

***

 

“Can anyone know?” Coulson asks. There is a delay, he’s sure of it now, from when he thinks about moving his hand to when it actually moves. The doctors tut at him and tell him it will go away. They suggest a few exercises, but Coulson is fairly certain they’re just to make him feel better. He is sure that the delay will be gone, in a few days, just like he lost full mobility in his left arm when he pointed out how strange it was that he had any at all.

“Need to know only.” Nick swings his feet up to rest on the end of Coulson’s bed. He is eating an apple he pulled out of his jacket pocket earlier. “And not the Avengers. They’re still too green and the WSC is still mad as hell.”

What Coulson wants to say is _what about Clint? What about my B-32A?_ but he doesn’t want to wake up tomorrow and have forgotten about him. Coulson can live with pain and a delayed hand. He’s not sure he can live without Clint, not happily. Not without first seeing, with his own eyes, that Clint’s okay.

 

***

 

The pain in Coulson’s chest starts to leave. He can move his arm again, can almost raise it all the way above his head again. The doctors all smile at each other and tell him how much progress he’s made.

“Tahiti’s a magical place,” they say, smiling. Coulson runs his fingers down his scar, ugly and raised and not at all sensitive to the touch.

“It certainly is,” he agrees, and waits to be discharged.

 

***

 

They make a fuss about him leaving too early, but Coulson knows it’s all for show. He was granted Level Eight clearance at the same time he was shipped off to manage Project Pegasus. Coulson is not a fool. He knows when he’s being played.

 

***

 

“I want a team,” Coulson says. He is in his favorite suit—midweight, dark grey, with the tie Clint bought him last Christmas—and it still fits him perfectly. It shouldn’t. Coulson has been stabbed through the chest and brought back from the dead. He has been living off hospital food. Everything should be too big on him, but nothing is. Everything fits like he was made for it.

Nick raises an eyebrow. “Are you even cleared to be on base?”

“I want a team,” Coulson repeats. “Small, handpicked by me. Doctors say I shouldn’t do anything crazy, but I can’t just sit around staring at my walls anymore. I’ve already caught up on my entire DVR.”

“And a team won’t be too much excitement for you?” Nick asks.

Coulson shrugs, careful to make it seem like his left shoulder still hurts. It doesn’t. “Anything’s less excitement than Barton and Romanoff. Besides,” he adds, “you owe me.”

It makes Nick laugh. “You get the doctors to sign off on this and I’ll get you your own damn plane.”

It’s not the Avengers, but it’ll do.

 

***

 

He makes sure to call when he knows Clint won’t answer.

“Don’t hang up, it’s really me,” Coulson tells Clint’s voicemail. “They lied to you Clint. I’m alive. I’m in New York. I miss you.”

Theirs has never been a relationship of overt sentiment but instead one of mutual understanding. It’s different now, though. Coulson’s been given a second chance and he plans to use it, plans to lead the operations he wants to lead. Plans to love Clint how he deserves to be loved.

“Call me,” Coulson says before hanging up. He’s using the burner phone he had tucked away in his personal safe house, the one he and Clint were trying to turn into their home. All the plants are dead and Coulson knows that Clint has not been here in weeks.

The phone is heavy in his pocket as he locks the door and walks to the subway. He has always loved New York at night; it’s always felt like endless possibility.

 

***

 

He sleeps in the hotel room that SHIELD is paying for and turns off his phone when he goes to bed.

In the morning he showers and eats breakfast before turning on the phone. There is one message and one missed call.

“Phil, you asshole,” Clint says. “I am so mad at you. Come home.”

 

***

 

Coulson goes home. Clint is there just like he said he would be.

There is no sweeping music and there are no tears. Instead, they hold each other in the open doorway and Clint whispers, “Phil, Phil, I thought you were dead,” into his ear, with the beating of his heart.

Instead, Coulson just holds Clint tightly and marvels at how it feels the same and different all at the same time.

 

***

 

“They told me you were dead,” Clint says. “They told us all you were dead.”

“I don’t know what they did,” Phil confesses, safe inside now with Clint at his side, “but I’m pretty sure I still should be.”

Clint strokes his fingers—calloused from bowstrings and a troubled youth—down the side of Coulson’s face, traces the line of his jaw, brushes a thumb over Coulson’s lips. He has always touched Coulson like he is a gift, like he is precious, and it has always made him feel adored and unworthy and a little sad. He has always thought that Clint should know how special he is, that Coulson is the lucky one to be loved by Clint and not the other way around.

“No,” Clint says, sounding so sure of himself. “No, you belong here.”

Clint does not say, _you belong with me_ , but when he leans forward, presses a kiss to his lips, Coulson can taste the words on his tongue.

 

***

 

Clint asks and so Coulson shows him his scar. The hair has just started to grow back, but Coulson knows he is further along in the healing process than he has any right to be.

“You can touch,” Coulson tells him, because Clint will never ask, always afraid of hurting him. Afraid of being told _no_. “It doesn’t hurt,” he adds, which makes Clint rolls his eyes.

“That’s what you always say,” Clint says, which has been true enough in the past that Coulson lets it go.

When Clint reaches out with curious fingers, touch feather light, and traces the line of Coulson’s scar, the planes of his chest, it occurs to him that his nipples are no longer as sensitive as they used to be. When Clint’s fingers brush against his ribs, however, he twitches away, ticklish.

“Well that’s new,” Clint says, wicked glint to his eye, and if it were any day _Before_ , then Coulson would lean in and press a kiss to Clint’s lips. But it’s after New York and Coulson’s body is no longer his own.

“They did something to me,” Coulson tells Clint, the only person he has loved and trusted without caveat. “I don’t think this my body.” It is the first time he’s said it aloud, and now that he has, Coulson knows that it is the unshakable truth. “When I died, they brought me back in this.”

Clint runs his hands down Coulson’s chest, pulls him into an embrace, and rubs soothing circles on his back. “You’re still you,” he whispers into Coulson’s ear. “You’re still, Phil.” He presses a kiss against Coulson’s jaw and doesn’t let go. “I don’t care what they did, I just care that you’re here.”

It is, Coulson realizes, sinking into Clint’s embrace, all he’s wanted to hear since he woke up when he was supposed to be dead.

 

***

 

When they fuck, it’s not the same. If Clint notices, he doesn’t seem to care. Coulson tries not to let it bother him.

 

***

 

He wakes up before Clint, just like he always used to do. This, at least, is comforting. He showers in his old shower, makes coffee with his old coffee pot, puts on one of his suits, comfortable in them in a way he is not in his own skin. He heads to SHIELD HQ before Clint can stop him.

 

***

 

“You’re getting your team,” Maria tells him, unsurprised to find him knocking on her office door. “What other ridiculous requests do you have to make?”

“I want to tell Barton,” Coulson tells her, shutting her door. “I have a B-32A.”

Maria frowns. “We’re not ruining your cover just because Barton happens to be your high-priority specialist piece of ass at the moment.”

Back in the day, when Coulson thought he had to choose between the job and love, he used to sleep with specialists. It was never anyone directly under his command and never anything serious, but Coulson likes sex and didn’t want the commitment. Besides, he liked solving the mystery of what made people tick—what made them cry and laugh and come.

Coulson was fifty by the time he realized that he’d been in love with Clint Barton for probably as long as he’d known him. He doesn’t blame Maria for thinking that his relationship with Clint won’t last—they never have before.

“And if it’s different this time?” he asks.

“I guess we’ll never know,” Maria says, “because as far as he’ll ever know, Loki killed you.”

He doesn’t bother asking Nick. Coulson can at least trust Maria not to alter his memories.

 

***

 

It takes two months to get a team together.

Clint and Coulson spend most of that time fucking in hotel rooms around the city, avoiding the eyes of SHIELD and getting themselves banned from an Embassy Suites when Coulson accidentally punches a hole through the wall. They don’t talk about Coulson leaving on a plane to go save the world, or the increasing number of texts Clint’s been receiving from Tony Stark. They don’t talk about how they still don’t know what SHIELD did to Coulson.

Clint, Coulson knows, doesn’t think it matters—Coulson’s here now, alive—but Coulson doesn’t like peaches anymore and can’t sleep on his back, and he dreams of waking up in hospital, that first time, feeling alive and whole with the memory of Loki’s scepter living under his ribs.

Coulson has always known his limits, but now all he knows is the beating of his own heart and he’s not even sure that’s the same.

 

***

 

Before he leaves, Clint tells him, “You’re not allowed to die on me again, Phil.”

There is a new burner phone tucked into Coulson’s suitcase, in between his handgun and his second favorite tie. He has an asset that’s as close as he can get to Natasha, and he has the two brightest scientists to make their way through the Academy since it was founded. Coulson has a plane and unlimited jurisdiction and distance between himself and Nick’s speculative gaze. But he does not have Clint. If he wants to know what happened to him in Tahiti, leaving is the only way.

Coulson holds onto Clint tighter, even though this is not goodbye, and promises, “I’d come back for you, again, if I did.”

 

***

 

His team is what he expected it to be, more or less. He picks up an unexpected hacker along the way, but Coulson was the man that brought in the Black Widow, that tamed Hawkeye. This is nothing new for him.

They call their plane The Bus and Coulson has it decorated in warm colors, a clear rebellion from the sleek chrome lines of SHIELD. There is a bar and a space for a fish tank and Coulson fills his office with old things that once had value—still do if you ask him—and doesn’t think about metaphors.

Coulson keeps his cell phone with him at all times and texts Clint whenever he can. It is very nearly enough.

 

***

 

His memories of New York are fuzzy at best.

For a while now, Coulson had thought it was the adrenaline blurring everything, but he suspects now that is not it.

Coulson has read the reports. He knows what happened, but he doesn’t feel anything. He doesn’t remember anything differently from what the official account reports. When he talks to Melinda and Ward, who were not there but lost people they held dear, there is fire in their eyes.

There is nothing in Coulson’s heart but empty space where he wonders what it felt like when Loki’s blade sliced through his chest. Where he is happy that he does not remember the pain of losing Clint.

Ward tells Skye ghost stories of New York while Melinda nods along beside him and Coulson knows with aching certainty that whatever SHIELD did to bring him back, they fucked with his memories along the way.

 

***

 

“Well, what can you remember with feeling?” Clint asks. Coulson is hiding in his office while the rest of his team is distracted. It is the first time he has heard Clint’s voice in weeks.

“Stark,” Coulson answers truthfully. He remembers an elevator ride, the sense of urgency pressing down on him, his unprofessional fondness for Pepper Potts.

On the other end of the line, Coulson hears Clint stifle a laugh. It makes something inside of Coulson ache. “Then if you can’t remember anything else, remember that.”

 

***

 

Six months in, he remembers something else. He remembers what the base in Tahiti is really for.

 

***

 

“Stark was developing Life Model Decoys,” Coulson explains over the phone. Melinda is making the final descent into Iowa while the rest of the team no doubt theorizes loudly about their sudden shore leave in Midwestern America.

“Yeah, but Stark doesn’t actually _have_ any Life Model Decoys,” Clint points out.

Coulson counters with: “Stark has more morals than SHIELD.”

There is silence on the other end of the line while Clint considers this. “Just come back, Phil. We’ll find out together.”

 

***

 

SHIELD doesn’t even know about Clint’s safe house in Iowa. It’s the only piece of his life left over from his circus days—a place in the middle of nowhere where Clint keeps money under loose floorboards and weapons in the rafters. They have always called it their Last Resort.

Coulson never thought they would use it like this.

 

***

 

They use the connections they have, the backdoor contacts they’ve made in long careers of black ops. Somehow, they make it to Tahiti without SHIELD knowing.

Nick and the others have underestimated him, Coulson thinks. They brought him back from the dead and fed him lies and they still think that he’s their mild-mannered attack dog. Coulson wasn’t even that when SHIELD was all he had.

 

***

 

It takes a lot to break into a SHIELD base but, honestly, it’s not the most difficult thing Coulson has ever done.

 

***

 

There is a room, brightly lit and antiseptic. Its walls are made of glass and there is a lock on the door Coulson has never seen before. He is positive that there is only a handful of people who have access, regardless of if they have Level Eight security clearance or not.

“Oh, Phil,” Clint says from somewhere to Coulson’s right. “I’m so sorry.”

Inside the room, Coulson lies on a hospital bed, face gaunt, body connected to wires, a machine helping him breathe. He closes his eyes and he can feel the fabric of his suit on his skin, the air conditioning, Clint radiating body heat. He can’t feel the machines keeping him alive. It makes it feel more and less real.

Coulson doesn’t know how long he stays, watching the rise and fall of his chest, but Clint stays with him the entire time.

 

***

 

When Coulson sleeps, all he can see is his own face, deathly pale. He dreams of waking up in that body, _his_ body, coughing on the breathing tubes that are keeping him alive and wakes up screaming.

“Shhh,” Clint murmurs, holding him to his chest, keeping him grounded even though Coulson feels that he is miles away, floating untethered into space. “You’re here with me. Phil, you’re with me and you’re _alive_. You’re alive.”

Coulson knows he’s alive. He’s in a room in Tahiti on life support. His muscles are atrophying and his hair is falling out and his lips are chapped.

He sobs into Clint’s chest, feels his lungs that are not his lungs ache. This is not his body and this is not his life and he belongs to SHIELD now, inside and out.

 

***

 

Coulson spends the rest of his shore leave in silence. As far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing else to say.

 

***

 

Nothing feels the same anymore, now that he knows.

Ward and Skye and Fitz and Simmons are so young, so alive, and Coulson thinks that he’ll never be that again. He thinks that he is a machine and he is lucky to be here at all.

“I still love you,” Clint had said before Coulson returned. “They can bring you back a mannequin and I’ll still love you.”

Coulson holds that truth to him, now. It gets a little easier every day, knowing that he is alive because he is a machine.

 

***

 

“You okay?” Melinda asks. The rest of the team are downstairs watching terrible videos on YouTube and, Life Model Decoy or not, Coulson feels every inch a fifty-year-old man. “You haven’t been the same since you came back.”

Coulson smiles at her weekly. “Just personal things. I’ll be fine.”

Melinda frowns at him. “This about Barton and how you’re still sleeping with him even though SHIELD doesn’t know?”

“You’re too smart,” he tells her, a laugh caught at the back of his throat. Coulson was killed by an alien god and SHIELD brought him back as a robot and Melinda May is still the only person who can keep track of his personal life. “I couldn’t lie to him,” he confesses, and knows that Melinda understands everything he isn’t saying.

“It doesn’t matter,” Melinda says with conviction. “SHIELD’s going to find out, but it won’t change anything. You and Barton are too valuable to lose.”

 _She doesn’t know_ , Coulson thinks. If there were anyone on Coulson’s team who knew the truth and was keeping it from him, it would be Melinda, but he can see the sincerity in her eyes. He used to worry about what would happen when SHIELD finds out, but now Coulson knows—he’s programmable.  SHIELD can control his body and change his memories and make him think that Tahiti is a magical place.

“I’ll be sure to put down your newfound interest in life coaching on your next assessment,” Coulson remarks, but, he thinks she might be right. For the first time since Tahiti, Coulson thinks that he has a team and he has Clint, who knows the truth.

SHIELD can’t take Coulson away now—there are people who care about him. He is not just their machine.

 

***

 

Coulson is not above using his Level Eight clearance to hack into Tony Stark’s files.

He reads about Life Model Decoys. About nanites and circuits and mental projection. He thinks about shortened refractory periods and punching through walls. Coulson thinks about Clint, holding him close, whispering him secrets and promises in the night as he sobs into his chest.

He can do this, Coulson thinks, he can be his own man. This is still his second chance; he’s not going to blow it.

 

***

 

He calls Clint when he can.

“It’s going to be okay,” he says. It’s the first time he’s smiled in weeks. “I’m going to figure it out.”

“Of course you are” Clint tells him, voice as steady as his aim.

Coulson flexes his hand that moves exactly when he tells it to and thinks that SHIELD rebuilt him, but his heart still flutters when he hears Clint Barton’s voice. He thinks that he is still himself. No one can take that away from him.

“I still love you,” Coulson says, because it needs to be said.

He can hear Clint’s smile over the phone. “Of course you do, sir. I’m very dashing.”

There is no going back, Coulson knows. He is a man, but not one of blood and bones. His life has a _before_ and an _after_ but he still has his sense of self and he still has Clint and everything is going to be okay.


End file.
